Friday, 22 March 2013

Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington - The Betrayal DLC Review

This review contains Episode 1 spoilers

It's March so that means it's time for the next part of the Tyranny Of King Washington DLC. Last month Episode 1 gave us a taste of what we will be incoming for the next 3 months, and to be honest that first taste we got wasn't all that great, although it wasn't bad at all. Episode 2 carries on straight after Episode 1's ending which sees Connor being sent to jail as well as being sentenced to death. Lets see if Episode 2 can improve from a lack luster Episode 1.

The DLC continues with the animal powers gimmick per episode, and in this episode Connor learns the power of the Eagle. The power of the Eagle gives the player some new perks and moves to Connor's advantage. The first addition is the ability to fly (Yes, you learn to fly) to pull off the new flying ability you have to aim at certain high parts of the area you are in and press Y/Triangle to fly to that area. With the flying ability you also have the chance to now pull off flying kills at enemies by again holding the Y/Triangle button. I enjoyed the new animal perks and found them a little better than the wolf perks due to having a much more fun pulling these off, and well... Flying is pretty damn cool too! The whole animal powers gimmick, while it sounds pretty ridiculous has been a high point for these DLC episodes.

The new animal power is awesome but sadly that is one of few positives this DLC brings as the story takes place in an extremely dull Boston which kills any enjoyment you could have had with this DLC. Boston lacks any life that it once had in the main Assassins Creed 3 game and also stops any creativity with your newly gained animal power. I wish Boston's dullness was the only thing dragging this DLC down but then as you go deeper in to the episode you just see more and more bad, for example in one mission you have an A.I with you fighting off enemies, and if he dies the mission gets desynchronized, normally I wouldn't mind this but not when the A.I is so bad that it is causing you to fail something that isn't your fault.

Although there was some dull parts to the story, I found it better than the previous episode as it gave us more direction to final episode, and to be honest they have built up this final episode pretty well. I won't spoil the ending because it is a non spoiler review but I will say that in the end of Episode 2 you should find yourself wanting to play the next episode just to see what twist and turns will be happening, and also how it will all go down. After two disappointing episodes, Episode 3 really needs to blow us away, and make people think that this whole side story wasn't just a big waste of time.

The Final Verdict

It's such a shame the way this DLC has been so far because it seriously has so much potential but there are way too many problems to consider this side story a success. I applaud the efforts for trying something different with Assassin's Creed but the problems all started pretty much straight away as the DLC shouldn't have even been in episode format because it keeps taking you out of the story every time you become interested, it is like playing the full retail version of a game but you can only complete half of it in one month and the other half in the next month. I just really hope Episode 3 is really good, and leaves the player with a good taste in their mouth once they are finished.

+The animal powers are defiantly going to be the highlight of this entire DLC side story as the eagle powers give this DLC some life.

+I found the story better this time around, and once I finished the 2nd DLC episode I found myself wanting to see how the story ends.

-A.I issues could cause you some troubles in this episode.
-Boston is dull as the location for this new DLC.
-Overpriced, shouldn't be in episodes and the DLC is no longer than 2 hours.